Mechanical elements, such as electromechanical relays and fuses, have traditionally been used for switching and/or protecting power sources to various loads. Such devices are prone to mechanical failures at unacceptably high rates.
Electronic or solid state switches have evolved and have been incorporated into power management switching arrangements, principally to take advantage of higher speeds and substantially lower failure rates as compared to their mechanical forerunners. Traditionally, however, these newer solid state switches are of fixed operating design for a particular application. For example, depending upon the nature of the load and the power supply, fixed operating limits, such as maximum allowable current, or excess operating current, are based on fixed levels against which the operating parameters of the power switching arrangement are compared.
There is an evolving need for more universal power management switch arrangements which can be programmed for variable fault detection limits and for power requirement delivery profiles as a function of a particular application.